


With a Step Forward, I'm Closer to Reaching You - Hakune

by Chezmeralda



Series: With a Step Forward, I'm Closer to Reaching You - Companion Pieces [6]
Category: Free!
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Loneliness, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 12:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2468093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chezmeralda/pseuds/Chezmeralda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What's great about the rain is that it washes everything away. Cleans everything, makes everything new. But the rain cannot clean itself, heal itself, make itself new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With a Step Forward, I'm Closer to Reaching You - Hakune

**Author's Note:**

> Hakune's back story, insight and thoughts.

Hakune looked along the dark horizon that ran along the beach, met with the steady breeze that came with the lull of the ocean.

Ever since Hakune was little, she both loved and feared the ocean.

The ocean, with power beyond human capacity, and beauty that reflected the sky, it was easy to say that it was beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

Hakune remembered a time when she'd died once in the ocean. 

She walked with quicker steps to the train station, hands shoved in her pockets as she passed through the lights of the city. A few people would glance her way, maybe call out to her, but she was used to that by now. 

A few cat calls on the street were nothing compared to what she felt for her workmates.

She thought to Haru as she sat down in the train. A mask of indifference that was easily broken by the expressiveness of his eyes, Hakune could easily say that she liked him. They could even be soul mates.

Soul mates. A concept taught to her by her mother at a young age. Her mother had been so believing in the connections people made with each other that it was easy to see why Hakune had tried to emulate her.

Her mother had the warmest smile.

Hakune leaned back in her seat on the train cart and thought to Haru. She got a few first impressions of him when she had interrupted his date with Makoto (what they were on was definitely a date, whether Makoto knew it or not). The first one was that he really, _really_ wanted to hate her. The second one was that he was unfairly pretty.

The third was that he was completely and inexplicably in love with Makoto.

Perhaps it was something about Makoto's considerate nature, but the boy was so blind to matters that involved him one had to think he was feigning ignorance. But he wasn't, he definitely wasn't.

_Chiaki eyed the group of girls that passed by their table for the third time before nudging Makoto in the shin, startling a jolt from him as he looked up from his text book._

_"Senpai!" he sounded indignant. "What was that for?"_

_"How many people are going to check you out today?" came the exasperated reply. "Hakune gets enough attention as it is, with her looking like she came out of a gravure magazine all the time-"_

_"Hey!" Hakune threw her napkin at him._

_"- and I know that people stare at me because of all my body mods. They probably think I could give them a kinky night or some shit," Chiaki ruffled his hair as he ducked his head, yet another group giving the three of them the once over._

_"Well, they're not wrong," Hakune cut in._

_"Shut up," he clicked his tongue, "but you, Makoto, are making it infinitely more impossible to study outside. People look ready to devour you, it's appalling."_

_Makoto flustered in silent disagreement as he hid his cheeks with his book, feigning the act of reading. Hakune laughed at him. "You had no idea, did you?" she asked._

_"About what?" came the embarrassed squeak._

_"About the way people look at you," she continued, sipping her tea as she marked down a note in her book. He looked at her, mouth gaping like a fish as he searched for words to argue with, before snapping his mouth shut, turning his head away with embarrassment._

_"They don't look at me differently than anyone else," he mumbled, and Chiaki nearly choked on his sandwich, biting back laughter._

_"Told you he was cute," he said between gasps._

_Hakune laughed her agreement as she watched Makoto nudge Chiaki's chair further and further away from the table. Makoto needed more self awareness about himself. It might give him confidence._

She knew that in the end Haru felt that he couldn't hate her, and she felt bad, really. She wanted him to like her, even if that was a selfish thing for her to think. She wanted to be his friend.

She wanted him to stop looking so lonely whenever Makoto was looking somewhere else.

_You're doing it again. You're taking on emotional problems that aren't yours._

Hakune sighed at the voice in her head, knowing where and who it was coming from. A best friend from high school had once told her that she would run herself ragged if she continued to connect with people the way she did.

But it was the way her mother did it, and Hakune did everything to emulate her mother.

She thought back to how Makoto and her had been, before she'd moved, before they'd broken up. Looking back, if she hadn't moved, would they have stayed together? Would they have been married by now?

In all practicality, probably.

It had been a comfortable relationship, one with real respect for each other, good communication, laughter, hugs, general close proximity. It had been, and was not, any different from her friendship with him, other than maybe public hand holding and exclusive dibs on his lips.

The only thing that really hurt was the way Makoto looked at the ocean.

Perhaps that was why they had been drawn to each other. The ocean was a symbol to both of them; a symbol of power, fear, respect. It gave them many things, just as it had taken away many things as well. 

For Makoto, it had been the kind old fisher.

For Hakune, it had been her mother.

Hakune had died in the ocean. That's what her child mind had told her, because she couldn't remember a thing from the time she'd fallen into the dark cold up to when she woke up in the hospital, cradled by her father, surrounded by her siblings.

Her mother hadn't been there in the hospital.

Hakune believed in gods. Spirits and deities. They had to exist, for all the things that science couldn't explain. For all the miracles, there were too many things that science had no firm hold on.

Hakune believed that on that day she'd died, her mother made a deal with the god of the sea. 

It was why Hakune was alive now when her mother was gone. 

She had been too young when she'd lost her mother. Sometimes she'd wake up at night, thinking that she remembered her mother's scent, only to find that she didn't know what that scent was anymore, or where it was coming from. She had hazy images of her mother's smile, distant echoes of her laugh, her voice. Hakune wondered if it was a bad thing that she was forgetting.

The first time she'd told anyone, it had been Chiaki, and he'd silently looked at her, unsure of what to say. They had been twelve and thirteen then, and Chiaki didn't talk much to keep people from hearing his voice from cracking.

Not that Chiaki had anything to say, anyway.

The second time she'd told anyone, it had been a girl named Suni, in her first year class, who later became her best friend. Suni had blinked at her before saying something along the sentiment of how she wished she had something comforting to say to her.

The third time had been Makoto, when they'd gone to the beach for an over night trip with a bunch of college friends. They weren't dating then, and Hakune had been watching the ocean lull, like she always did.

"I'm sure you're mother would do it again, if she had the choice," was what he'd said, startling Hakune to look up at him. 

She had cried then, tears that she didn't know she was holding, and it was the first time Makoto had kissed the top of her head as he hugged her, soothing her. The first of many times after that.

It was really then that they started drifting closer to each other.

It was only about a month into the relationship that Hakune had noticed another reason for why Makoto stared at the ocean. It was if he was searching, watching a memory play out before him, before he'd turn to her and smile gently. 

She'd found her reason when she went to Iwatobi with him.

He had come to get her for Obon to introduce him to his friends. He had ran to her and looked flustered, apologized for being late, kissed her forehead before walking with her, holding her hand the whole way.

Haru, the best friend from childhood that Makoto had talked so much about, was not among the friends she met.

Hakune wasn't stupid, from the way Makoto would flinch at the mention of Haru, to the fact that Haru's presence was missing entirely, she could easily put two and two together. 

She could guess why Makoto had looked so flustered when he'd run to get her.

It was the real reason why they broke up. Hakune had to give him the chance to let go, and frankly, she didn't trust herself when it came to long distance relationships. Makoto couldn't forget the feelings he never expressed, even if he didn't know about them himself, and Hakune didn't want to tie him down when she was so far.

The fact was she was afraid.

Hakune could guess how Makoto had handled his feelings when it came to Haru. She could guess that he probably took him off to the side, had a private conversation with him, and told him that he would be studying in Tokyo. 

She could guess the next part, too, from all the nuances she picked up from the both of them. How they both looked at each other, waiting for the other to take the first step into the dark, waiting for one of them to break the ice.

They were waiting for the other to confess, when they knew full well they could not.

Hakune sighed as she walked off the train and towards her apartment complex. This was the only thing that she never understood about Makoto, and probably why she encouraged him to be more physically affectionate when they were friends in university. He lived in his head, admired from afar. Makoto was vocal, sure, could say things to his friends when necessary, if not a bit passive.

But when it came to deep conversations, he was afraid of what the reaction would be. 

Hakune knew that Chiaki figured that out about Makoto, too. He had been his roommate in university after all. It was why Chiaki began to include him in his conversations with Hakune, the ones that involved his family, the ones that involved the constant scrutiny from relatives that didn't approve of how his mother raised him.

Hakune may hound Chiaki for being an idiot, but the man was smart for the subtleties. 

She knew that the inclusion probably meant a lot to Makoto. He began to open up more with them, spoke to them about things he was worried about. He began to hide things less from them, because he began to understand that there was no judging from them, there would be no scrutiny, no whispered disapproval. 

She hoped that it would carry over to the friends he'd left behind in Iwatobi. If not for Haru's sake, then for his own.

She thought to her conversation with Makoto over dinner. How she'd confirmed with him why they broke up, since he'd asked. How she was afraid of committing to someone who had hid away his feelings for someone else rather than saying them the first time, even if he'd gotten rejected. It wasn't that she didn't think they wouldn't have worked together, because she knew that at one point, Makoto did love her, and had been _in_ love with her, it was that because she was so far, she knew the space between them would cause his mind to wander.

Those thoughts of 'what if' would fill his mind, and Hakune wouldn't have the heart, or the right, to tie him down. It just wouldn't be fair.

When she'd told him, Makoto had looked at her with pain in his eyes, pain that Hakune was ready for because she knew he would look that way. He'd almost cried, apologizing for hurting her, apologizing for not realizing the pain he was probably causing her during their relationship, apologizing for not being what she needed. She had wiped his tears and kissed his forehead, because she had already forgiven him for it.

It may have hurt, but Hakune knew pain, she could live with knowing that Makoto still loved her enough to want her in his life.

What bothered Hakune now, more than anything, was the fact that Haru and Makoto were on the precipice. They needed a push before they both fell in, but neither one of them were even thinking about jumping. It was like they were looking at the sky, completely ignoring the cliff before them.

Hakune could only guess how long Haru had been like that towards Makoto.

She opened the door to her apartment, greeted by a tired Samoyed puppy who had been waiting in front of the door. She picked it up when it ambled up to her, looking at her for a cuddle. 

Her talk with Haru had gone well enough. She hoped that she'd dispelled any thoughts he'd had of her wanting to take Makoto back. That was in the past, she wasn't about to go there again.

Not when she knew her suspicions of those two were so painfully, _ridiculously_ right.

He'd looked so embarrassed, and Hakune hoped a little happy, when she'd called him his soul mate. She wanted to believe that he would begin to trust her. She wanted to help him, so he'd have to trust her, eventually.

If she could guess anything about Haru, it was that he had been waiting for a sign from her that she wasn't going to go after Makoto. She could tell that Haru thought he would lose.

"They're both pretty blind, aren't they?" she murmured to the puppy as it cuddled into her chest. She stroked its fur until it went to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Tried to go for a bit of a more prose-y style of writing with Hakune, since it's mostly her thoughts to herself about the whole Makoto and Haru situation. 
> 
> Also I wanted to reveal a bit about her before I move to the next chapter, since her insight and back story seems to be really important to some of you (which makes me really happy).
> 
> Before you say anything, I've generalized Chiaki's tattoos and piercings to "body mods" because I'm a lazy person and didn't want to specify by writing "tattoos and piercings".


End file.
